Anything Goes_ A Biography of the Roaring Twenties - Lucy Moore [57]
By the early 1920s Ford was motor manufacturing’s Colossus. The Tin Lizzie had proved so dominant that between 1917 and 1923 Ford hadn’t even needed to advertise her merits. As the industry liked to say, “If you could deliver automobiles you could sell them.” Production was the only issue. Slowly, though, other motor manufacturers were beginning to think of ways to weaken Ford’s ascendancy, grasping in a way that he did not that cars needed to be sold, not merely distributed.
In 1924 the single-color, single-model Model T was knocked off her pedestal. General Motors had started to offer rainbow colored cars in a variety of styles, including enclosed bodies and self-starting motors—realizing that the next challenge to the automotive industry was not how to get people to buy a car (most of those who could afford it already had one) but how to get them to buy another, and then another.
As the market became more competitive, cars became more sophisticated and the range of people they were targeted towards broadened. Improved engine technology and fuel made driving smoother, quieter and easier. Crank shafts were replaced by electric starter motors. New developments in lacquers that dried in twenty-four hours rather than up to thirty days allowed customers to buy a car in Liberty Blue, Versailles Violet or Apache Red rather than black.
At first Ford refused to accept that the common man didn’t want to remain the “common” man—that he aspired to something greater and more elusive than cheap and efficient uniformity. His market troubles were compounded by conflict with his son, Edsel, who had been president of Ford Motors since 1918, over the direction the business should take. Finally convinced by arguments that he needed to adapt to this strange new desire for choice, Ford shut down his plant and modernized it, sacking all his workers. Since his was the only factory in town it was almost impossible for them to find new jobs without leaving their homes. When he was ready, Ford hired them back—at the same rate they had received before they were fired, $5 a day, and without any compensation for the $50 million they had collectively lost in missed wages.
Although it was the conglomerate General Motors who had ousted Ford from his position as market leader, the most interesting car manufacturer of the 1920s was Walter Chrysler. He had started out as a railway engineer before joining Buick (part of General Motors) as works manager in 1912, where he was described by one of his team as the “greatest production man in the industry,” and quickly rose to become company president. While Ford was developing his assembly line, Chrysler was innovating in other directions. The introduction of electric lights and starter motors made him think for the first time that the new breed of emancipated women might be potential car buyers.
Chrysler left Buick in January 1920. At his farewell dinner he was lavished with the highest possible praise, lauded as “a real American and one who understands Americanism and keeps things in the main current of American life.” He took over Maxwell Motors which began selling the first Chrysler cars in 1924 and became the Chrysler Corporation the following year.
While Ford was (both to its advantage and its detriment) a one-man band, and while General Motors, an amalgamation of various smaller companies like Buick, depended on its organizational capacity, the Chrysler Corporation’s success was founded on Walter Chrysler’s extraordinary management skills. Chrysler himself personified “traditional American qualities of initiative, courage, leadership and resourcefulness.” He believed “in the dignity of work.” Not only was he unfailingly energetic and driven, but he was “absolutely fair to his people, square with his customers, and faithful to his stockholders.” Most importantly of all, he created an atmosphere in which his workers were encouraged